Third wave on, 75% cases in metros are Omicron: Covid task force head

A large chunk of Omicron cases in India as the country faces a third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic have been reported from big cities, the head of the country's vaccine task force said, adding the third wave of the pandemic is very much here.
India recorded nearly 1.3 lakh fresh cases during December 27-January 2, a 12-week high, as compared with the previous week's tally of 46,073, which ironically was the lowest since the middle of May 2020. This was by far the sharpest weekly surge in infections since the beginning of the pandemic in the country. The previous highest increase was 71% recorded during the second wave in April 5-11, 2021.
On Sunday, 33,703 fresh cases of the coronavirus were detected across the country (with two states yet to report), another 21% rise from the previous day's count of 27,747. Sunday's tally was five times the number of cases recorded in the country last Sunday (6,542). Such a steep increase is consistent with reports of Omicron's spread in other countries, although the percentage of people being infected with the new variant is yet to be properly estimated.
"Look at whatever the variants have been genome sequenced... We got our first virus right in the first week of December. So, last week, nationally overall, 12 percent of the variants identified were Omicron and the week gone by in the previous week, it has increased to 28 per cent. So, it is rapidly increasing as a proportion of all the Covid infections in the country. Now, having said that, I must also say something more important and that is that around the major metro cities, Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and particularly Delhi, it is over 75 per cent of all the isolates now," said Dr Arora, who is Chairman of the National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation, or NTAGI.
India has so far reported 1,700 Omicron cases, with Maharashtra reporting the most number of infections at 510. The country also saw a 22 per cent jump in new COVID-19 cases, government data showed.
Dr Arora said the third wave of the pandemic is very much here. "India is clearly in the third wave of COVID-19. And the whole wave seems to be driven by a new variant and today it is Omicron," Dr NK Arora said, adding this is supported by evidence from the last four-five days that saw "galloping increase in the number of cases".